11th to 15th July 200711th to 15th July 2007These pages are now a history of the first Sunfest, along with some pictures. This pages has lots of images and is best viewed with a broadband connection.
The idea was cooked up by Patrick, encouraged by Rob on Easter Monday. "Let's have a beer festival." Patrick was inspired by a visit to the Flowerpot's first (and last they say) beer festival in Derby. "We can do that" he said. Rob was thinking in terms of a dozen beers or even twenty. Pat wasn't impressed, we need at least 50 he said. Thus began a lot of hard work for a lot of people in the brewery and the pub, almost none of them Pat.
A conversation with Keith Simpson of Brown Cow Brewery at the Brewers' weekend at the Prince of Wales in Foxfield, South Lakes, provided the solution to the cooling problem which Pat duly implemented the day before the beer was set up. Weeks before that the artist was commissioned to produce the logo for the glass, the flyers and the t-shirt, and work started to source the beers.
The week before the festival, beer was delivered and collected from around the country. The new Grafton Brewery near Worksop called and asked if they could have a spot in the festival and were duly included. Beer was piled into the cellar at the Rising Sun such that you could barely move for casks piled three high.
The Sunday before the festival, lots of brewery-and pub-related folk turned up to put up the marquee, stillage the beer, set up the cooling, wash the glasses and generally set the whole thing up. It went well and even the rain held off. The only problem was the wind, which threatened to assist the tent in achieving lift-off. So it was temporarily fastened to Rob's car while Rob spent the next two days solving the problem of anchoring the tent to the car park with help from Phil and Pat. This was eventually achieved with bolts, magic glue and 18s full of water over the bolts. Phil, with assistance from Poppy, took up residence at night to guard the precious beer.
The opening night was a great success with many friends of the brewery and pub showing up. Rob and Julie put on a fabulous buffet with a little help from son David who cooked a splendid fish and even got dressed up in his chef's gear to serve it. Joe Simpson turned up to give his support to the fund raising for Edale Mountain Rescue. The brewery brewed a special beer called Salvation and donated profits from its sale to Edale. The Mountain Rescuers present all got him to sign their Salvation pumpclips. The pumpclip was based on a watercolour painted by the artist when he failed to find any stock pictures of dogs which would serve his purpose. Finally we got some nice pictures of Joe with the Edale vehicle and team. Salvation was the first beer to sell a 9 gallon cask, mainly due to the efforts of the Edale team, and one of them was a designated driver so the others had to work extra hard.
Thursday and Friday were the difficult days as the weather was unkind. Friday night the tent was packed with people elbow to elbow staying out of the rain. Our thanks to all of you who supported us in those two difficult days and evenings by coming out despite the weather. You know who you are, thankyou.
Saturday was a lovely day. We were able to BBQ as promised. The long sunny day became a pleasant evening and everyone had a great time.
My favourite picture of lots of people enjoying the festival at dusk on Saturday.
The less said about Sunday the better. On Monday we took it all down and put it all away carefully, ready for next year.